Fall reading week dates put forward for consideration
Simon Yackulic
Gateway Staff
Oct 12, 2011
Provost Carl Amrhein is currently considering four options for creating a fall reading week at the U of A, and the break is now inching closer to actually being implemented.
The fall reading week proposal has been gaining momentum since former Students’ Union President Nick Dehod ran on creating a new break for the fall semester, a key part of his overall campaign theme of addressing student mental health during the 2010 SU elections.
During the 2011 elections, a plebiscite question on implementing fall reading week passed with 55 per cent of the vote. The proposal would have created the break during the Remembrance Day long weekend, with school starting before Labour Day to make up for the time off.
Dehod took the narrow margin of victory as an indication of general student support, though he felt that it also showed that the SU should look at some of the concerns that were raised about the break and consider the timing of the week.
Tighe explained that following the supportive plebiscite, a task force that included Tighe and Dean of Students Frank Robinson was struck, and met during the summer to consider the different options for creating a new break. The task force looked at logistical concerns at the U of A, and how other institutions dealt with breaks.
“We decided to look at finding three days instead of four, and we decided that the Remembrance Day break would be better than Thanksgiving,” Tighe said, adding that the task force decided that class time would need to be affected. “With any proposal, we need to cut instructional days.”
“The U of A is among the highest in Canada in the number of instructional days we have. If we were to cut two or three days we would then be in the middle of the pack.”
The task force settled on four of multiple options and scenarios, which they have given to the Provost for consideration. All four scenarios involve taking a week off in conjunction with Remembrance Day. The first option would see classes start a week earlier — if it was implemented on this year’s calendar, classes would’ve started on Wednesday, Aug. 31 instead of Wednesday, Sept. 7, maintaining the current 63 instructional days.
Another option has classes starting Tuesday, Sept. 6, and reducing the study break before final exams by one day, reducing total instructional days to 62. The third option is similar, with classes starting on Sept. 6, but with no reduction to the pre-final exam study break, taking total instructional days down to 61. The final option would have classes start as they normally would, on Sept. 7, with no reduction before final exams. Instructional days would be cut to 60.
According to Tighe, however the break ends up looking, the end goal is to help out students.
“The big benefit, to put it in a category, is student success. For mental health, students can take a break and look at what help they really need,” Tighe explained, noting that the task force looked at similar fall breaks at other Canadian institutions and were impressed with what they saw.
The fall reading week would not be implemented next year, but would at its earliest begin in the fall of 2013.
Comments
Just a small correction:
None of the options would reduce the break that students receive before exams; this value was upheld by the Task Force and championed by the Students’ Union. Currently, classes end on the Wednesday, with a break on the Thursday and consolidated examinations begin on the Friday.
Option three would simply start consolidated examinations on the Saturday; while classes would end one day later (the Thursday), the one-day break before the start of examinations would be retained for Friday. It should be noted that, as it removes one day of consolidated exams, it is unknown how this shift will affect future exam schedules.
Posted by Kyle on Oct 12, 2011
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